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The board of directors of the Virginia, Maryland and Delaware Association of Electric Cooperatives has a new leadership team.

Serving as chair of the VMDAEC board for 2021-22 is Russell G. “Rusty” Brown, board vice chairman at Northern Neck Electric Cooperative in Warsaw. Brown is a banker with Atlantic Union Bank in Warsaw and a director at Colorado-based CoBank, a cooperative lending institution.

“I am looking forward to working with our board and continuing our mission of serving our members by providing safe, reliable, affordable electricity and other necessary services for rural communities,” he said.

The vice-chairman for 2021-22 is Wade C. House. He is chairman of the board of Northern Virginia Electric Cooperative and is retired as president of the Virginia division of a large highway construction and materials manufacturing company.

Serving as secretary/treasurer will be C. Michael Sandridge, who represents BARC Electric Cooperative on the association board. Sandridge is retired from administration at the Rockbridge Regional Jail and is currently a livestock producer. He lives on the farm once owned by his grandfather.

The leaders were elected July 26 during the association’s 77th annual business meeting at the Marriott Virginia Beach Oceanfront Hotel, where more than 300 directors, CEOs and co-op leaders came together at an in-person annual meeting for the first time since 2019.

They will guide the course of the association as it delivers services to cooperatives that provide power to about 2 million people in Virginia, Maryland and Delaware.

“Each of these officers also serves on the board of their local electric cooperative and on one or more of the association’s 10 committees,” Brian Mosier, president and CEO of the association, said. “We truly depend upon their commitment to provide input on how to expand and improve the services we provide our member cooperatives.”

Outgoing chair Patricia Dorey joked she didn’t have a gavel to turn over to Brown, since she was elected at a virtual meeting in 2020 and only laid eyes on her gavel at this year’s meeting. Yet, “these unprecedented challenges have made us stronger in many ways,” she said.